Diaspora Spice Co. & Highbeam: Fair Trade Spice Banking Partner

Dear Friends,

I'm Sana Javeri Kadri, founder of Diaspora Spice Co.

Back in 2016, I received $3,000 from my tax returns and spent half of it on a one-way ticket back home to Mumbai. While there, I spent seven months doing unpaid market research - 40+ farm visits, endless unanswered phone calls, a squishy motorbike ride through a rice paddy, and one life-changing meeting with the Indian Institute of Spices Research. And slowly, one handshake and one harvest at a time, something began to take shape.

Today, I have personal connections with 140 farmers and their families across India and Sri Lanka. Some relationships go back to that very first trip. Our now dear friend Mr. Prabhu Kasaraneni grew our very first spice - Pragati Turmeric - and he changed the way I think about what fair actually means.

We didn't price his turmeric based on commodity averages or market rates. We sat down together and asked a different question entirely: how much does it cost for Prabhu to pay his rent, cover his water bill, and send his nephew to school? That number became our starting point, and that conversation became our model. Building a trade where the person growing your food can actually afford to live is still at the heart of everything we do at Diaspora Spice Co.

Today, we source 30 single-origin spices, pay our farm partners an average of 2-10x above commodity price, and we're building the kind of trade that actually works for the people growing your food.

Rebuilding a supply chain from the ground up taught me how much the right financial partner matters. That's why I'm deeply grateful to bank with Highbeam, a partner I truly love.

We've been with Highbeam for a couple of years now, and they deeply understand what it takes to run an independent, values-driven consumer brand. As founders, having financial tools that actually reflect how our businesses operate makes such a difference.

Highbeam gives us access to a high-yield primary account usually reserved for much larger companies, clear visibility across all our cash in one place, and transparent exchange rates with very reasonable fees on international wire transfers - which, operating between the US and India, is no small thing. We're paying a fraction of what we used to. Most importantly, there are real humans on the other end when questions come up, and getting things fixed and handled is always a breeze.

As a progressive spice company, working super hard to do right by our farm partners and community, it is only fair that we should have a banking partner in Highbeam - working just as hard to do right by us.

With love & in community,

Sana Javeri Kadri
Founder, Diaspora Spice Co.